Sunday, September 26, 2010

Apartment 306

 

Hello Friends and Family,

This post is long overdue, but here are some pictures of our apartment!  Enjoy!!

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Kitchen IMG_3937  IMG_3939

Breakfast Area

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Living Room

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View out our windows

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Entry Way, this is what you see when you walk in!

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Connor’s Room

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I will post pictures of our room soon!  I didn’t realize that I didn’t take any pictures yet! 

As always, thank you so much for following our blog and praying for us!  The Lord is gracious and we are so thankful!

Love Ya’ll,

Marya, Brian & Connor

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Grandma’s Attic

Well friends and family,

I am overdue for an update on how things are going!  I started my new job a week ago today!  To begin with, I work for a local guy who buys antiques at auctions and then sells them.  I for one of the stores he has on e-bay, also known as Grandma’s Attic.  There is a huge, huge, huge learning curve with this job.  Every item that we list is unique and requires special attention to detail.  My job description has been up in question this past week, but so far this is what i think I will be doing: cleaning the items so that they are ready to be photographed and then going through the process of describing the items and listing them online.  As I said before, each item is unique and so it requires me to do a little research of sit with my boss and take notes will he describes the highlights of my job!

All of the employees that I work with are either students of Cordon Conwell or spouses of a student of Gordon Conwell (like me).  They are all very nice and very enjoyable to be around.  The schedules are flexible and so we have been able to work it out where we only need about 3 hours of childcare for Connor!

Brian also started his job last week too!  He is Mr. Mom!!!  Not really a job just part of the job description of being a DAD!  He is doing an amazing job!  Connor loves being able to spend so much time with his Daddy! 

We both feel so blessed to be where we are right now.  God gave me a job in 2 days!  Brian, I know is enjoying getting to spend more time with Connor!  There are still adjustments to be made.  Classes started this week and Brian has been doing a great job of managing his time and getting his reading and studying done for his classes! 

Please pray for Brian and I both as we learn to juggle our schedules.  Pray that Brian is able to focus on his studying and is able to comprehend and grow from it. 

Thank you as always for reading and commenting!

More to come soon!

Love always,

Marya, Brian and Connor

Prayer Requests:

  1. Classes and studying
  2. Buyer/Renter for our house
  3. Finances

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Address...

So we found out after we moved here that the address for our actual apartment is not very reliable for mail.  We WILL EVENTUALLY get our mail at this address and so far we haven't had any problems (that we weren't aware of).

But we wanted to give everyone following and keeping up to date with us our address that is reliable.

Brian, Marya or Connor Marsh
GCTS Box 367 B
130 Essex St.
South Hamilton, MA 01982

We gladly will accept any mail you send our way!
Miss everyone back at home!

Brian, Marya & Connor

Please continue to pray for:
1.  Our house, buyer or renter
2.  Figuring out child care for Connor
3.  FAITH!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Living by Faith

We have decided that every once in a while we will post up a blog about what God is teaching us through our journey.  This is hopefully the first of many.  Once I begin classes I will try to occasionally write about what I am learning, but todays post comes from my quiet time reading.  I am still trying to get back into my daily quiet time routine after our move (an excuse that is NOT justified) and have been doing better lately.  While I was working, I found an email devotion that was good that I could read first thing when I got to work.  Since I am not working on a daily basis, I am having to adjust when I get my quiet time.  So far my most consistent time has been during Connors's nap time (quiet time is not something a 2 year old gets surprisingly enough).  Alright so getting back to what I am going to share, this is something that I have been struggling with since our move and hope that maybe this will encourage others that may be struggling with it as well.

Disclaimer:  This was not a planned or well written report.  These are my thoughts on the following scripture verses and my flow of thoughts as I think of them.  Hopefully you can follow it and it makes some sort of sense.  ENJOY!

Living by Faith.

I have really been struggling with the idea of living by faith recently.  This may surprise some of you at first, but hear me out on this.  It is safe to say that we have exercised this idea of living by faith decently well recently.  Marya and I felt God's call for us to go into ministry and so we acted on this call.  In the past 6 months we quit both our jobs (secure jobs that made plenty of money for us to live comfortably on), tried to sell our house, and moved 1000+ miles away from our families and friends to a place we know little about.  That took a lot of faith.  I do not say that to sound boastful, but it was really hard.  That was a decision that did not come lightly and one that we prayed about and prayed about, and then we prayed about it some more.  I think maybe deep down inside I thought to myself, "well after all this sacrifice, maybe seminary life will be easy."  Haha It is far from that.  I firmly believe that God called us to seminary, and specifically Gordon Cowell, so that it would not be easy.  I am not cynical or bitter, but I do believe that it is for our own good, and for the good of God's plan that we do this.  This is the first time as a couple that Marya and I are truly, 100%, absolutely needing to trust in God and live by faith.  I feel this experience will make us stronger Christians and stronger as a couple.  We have a lot of fears, and worries.  We still do not have a renter or buyer in our house.  We learned that taxes AND insurance go up when you rent out a house.  Health Insurance is expensive!  Meeting new people and developing new friendships is difficult.  So through all this and more, I was starting to really freak out.  I can safely say that for a while at the beginning of this week, I was NOT living by faith, I was NOT reading my bible daily, and my walk with God was NOT EVEN CLOSE to where it should be.  Luckily, I was led to the bible mid-week and was led specifically to Hebrews 11.  I have since read this passage a couple times and continue to be comforted by it.  This may not sounds like a normal "comfort verse" like many others in the Bible, but it is for me right now and I will share with you why.  First, I encourage you all to read this chapter (in its entirety), but for those of you that can't or don't want to right now, I will summarize it in the condensed this-is-what-Brian-got-out-of-it-and-it-may-or-may-not-be-100%-right version.  Ok so the author starts by giving a brief definition of faith (the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. v1) and then goes into this long list of people in the Bible that show, what I consider to be, extraordinary steps of faithful living in God's will.  He talks about Abel, Abraham, Sarah, Moses's parents, Moses, etc.  This is by far an exhaustive list of Biblical people that lived by faith, but it is enough of a list to understand what the author is trying to show.  My summary of this chapter is that God calls people to live by faith, not necessarily so that THEY will benefit, but so that HE will benefit.  These people did not have easy, carefree lives.  I'm sure all of these people went through hard times, rough times, times that they questioned what God was doing, and was God really doing what was best.  The important thing is though that all these people deep down inside did truly believe that God's plan was far better than their own, and that even though this small window of time might seem bad or tough, living in God's will far outweighs the alternatives.  I have found myself starting to understand a small amount of what Abraham was going through (v8-10) when God told him to leave what he knew to follow what God said.  Living by faith is difficult, but if you can find the courage to start, God will help you along the way.  That is the phrase that continues to reverberate in my head.  I don't know if that is from scripture or not, but I do know that God does not abandon those that He has called when you go out in His name whether that is to South Hamilton, MA or you local grocery store.  God has a purpose and a plan for each one of us and sometimes the only way to get there is to leave all that you know, all that is comfortable, and all that is easy so that you NEED to turn to Him for guidance.

In Christ,
Brian

PS.  I am also going to start a list of current prayer concerns that we will try to update with every post.
1.) Our house
2.) child care for Connor
3.) Faith

Saturday, September 4, 2010

A little exploring on a Saturday afternoon

We took a drive today to the coast and took a couple pictures.  We started driving up the coast near Glouster (~15 min from our place) and we drove to Rockport (~30 min away).  ENJOY!









Love from MA,
Brian, Marya & Connor

Finally getting settled

A lot has happened since we posted up last.  We finished our drive up to Massachusetts, unloaded the truck (in ~3hrs!), and then started unloading the boxes.  Our apartment is finally starting to look like someone lives here, not just a place used for storage.  One awesome fact, after leaving the south and thinking we had run from the heat, we were "greeted" to New England by 3-4 days with highs in the mid 90s.  Our apartment does not have central air (only window units), so it is a slightly different "heat" experience than we are used to.  Luckily there high humidity days are still nothing compared to SC.  Even in the heat of the day, you can go in the shade and actually cool down.  Its a novel concept that we are not familiar with in southern summers.  We will try to get some pics up of campus and our apartment soon.


A couple state signs we saw...











Our 3 vehicles (the TLC, the 4 runner , and the Budget truck).  All made it!



Love from MA,
Brian, Marya & Connor